Springtime Sensory Bin: Dying rice with DIY liquid watercolors

Springtime Sensory Bin

We are SO over winter. It’s actually been cold and rainy which we aren’t used to, and the flu has come and never wants to leave! We love to play with a sensory bin in our house, so I decided it was time to create a Springtime themed one to help bring in the spring weather!

When I thought about dying rice for a new sensory bin I knew I couldn’t use the method I did before. If you read our post on DIY Bath Paint, you know I HATE food coloring and the first sensory bin I did reminded me why. My fingers were stained, I had to bleach the stove where the color dropped, AND look how the colors turned out! So dreary and sad even that cute penguin can’t make it look like fun. While Aaliyah loves it, I really want the colors of the sensory bin to be vibrant so it’s also visually stimulating.

DIY Liquid Watercolors

So of course I went straight to Pinterest and discovered you can also dye rice with liquid watercolors! Yay! Buying liquid watercolors for $20 for 6? No way!

But I wasn’t giving up! Looking at liquid watercolors I realized they are literally liquid watercolors, like the paint cakes in liquid form. We had tried watercolors because I LOVE how they paint and blend. But water-paint-paper is a process my little one hadn’t been able to master yet. Instead she was more water-paper-more water-paper-touch the brush to every color.

I had some palettes I bought from the dollar store and some small containers I purchased there as well. I chose which colors I wanted for the sensory bin and put one paint cake in each container and filled it with warm water. I let them sit while I made breakfast, then stirred each to break up the rest of the paint.

Rice Dying

To dye the sensory bin rice I evenly distributed the rice into 5 plastic containers. I started adding the colors 1/4 container at a time. (Each container is about 1 1/2 tablespoons.) I then put the lid on and shake and swirl the container to spread the color. I like to put it in the container so I don’t waste plastic bags! Each color took a different amount, orange and blue took 1/2 container but pink (should’ve been red but pink looked better anyways!) and green took the whole container. If you want deeper, no pastel colors for your sensory bin you can put two cakes in each container. The hardest color was purple!! I ended up adding a second cake and refilling the container twice to get rid of the weird gray color it got the first time!

I know that other tutorial say to lay all the rice out on cookie sheets but I don’t have enough to lay out 5 containers. I just take the containers outside and let them sit in the sun for two hours. I stir after an hour so the bottom rice gets dry too!

After I let her paint with the leftover DIY liquid watercolors. They worked perfectly and were SO much easier to use!

Your springtime sensory bin rice is now complete! Aren’t the colors so cheery and beautiful?? Stay tuned for part two to see what we put in our spring sensory bin!

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About Mermama

Hi! I'm Lexi.
I'm the mermama to my merbaby. I live and create on Callifornia's central coast. I love to travel, binge watch, and take pictures. I'm passionate about art education and encouraging creativity in children.